Pinocchio's freaky. Have you seen that scene where they smoke cigars and turn into jackasses. Powerful stuff. And I suspect it might also resonate with YTMNDers because Disney was both an animator and an anti-semite.

true. but i dunno, that kidnapping scene in finding nemo...the camera zooms into the dad's reaction to his son being kidnapped in front of him (every mom/dad/child nightmare) and he screams NOOOOOO!!! or something...i thought that was pretty f*cked up for a kids movie.

Disney was a perfectionist, something rare in any age. Check out early Disney when there're musicians playing, they're actually hitting the right notes. As for dark and challenging kids movies, you're right that they're rare, but they're around. Coraline was fairly creepy.

nobody needs to mention bamby. or dumbo. in beauty and the beast, a walking, talking armoire defeated an enemy human by drawing him inside his body and dressing him in drag. the man was so freaked out he retreated and could no longer fight.

so Bambi had his mother die. Pinocchio was twisted by the depths of his own selfishness. Those are the big wins in the Disney Dark column. What else? I seem to remember a creepy dragon from Sleeping Beauty, something like the Beast from Fantasia - but that wasn't that disturbing. Snow White died, and the puppies almost ended up as coats - but you knew it was going to be awright. Oh, Old Yeller was sad...

i would have stayed a beast man and not become human again, just gotten over being a f*cking grump. that beast was so well equipped! he could walk upright and on all fours, and had the freedom to leave the castle. i would go off in the woods and fight/kill/eat bears and mountain lions, then go home to my castle full of servants.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame was pretty intense. Quasi-moto's mother gets killed in front of the steps of the church in the first five minutes of the movie, and thereafter was almost dropped and drowned in the well as a baby. Also, Esmeralda was almost burned at the stake.

Song of the South- one of the Disney films that will never, ever get re-released owing to political incorrectness.
Which is a shame. Like Grimm's original "fairy tales", we used to tell our children far scarier stuff for stories.

hmmm, as for scarier stuff. seems as the nature of our heroes changes through the years, so do our depictions of villians. what used to be arch-enemies has become terrorists (die hard, etc.) or corporations (watchmen, etc.). i bet Grimm's stopped being scary when people stopped being eaten by wolves. as for Song of the South, in my day we called it Birth of a Nation.